


if it feels like a home

by hereisthepart



Series: love and great buildings [2]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 06:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20810246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereisthepart/pseuds/hereisthepart
Summary: Jihoon'sMinggoo-yaaahis wordless and warm, his arms spread briefly, the fabric of the oversized tank underneath his open Lotte Giants jersey draping dangerously loose across his chest.It’s a good way to go, as far as Mingyu is concerned: contemplating dramatically flinging himself to the ground in the walkway of this baseball stadium to avoid blurting out to anyone who meets his eyes thatactually, he’salsoliving in every home he draws for his boyfriend, so he chirps and clutches a hand to his heart instead, not stopping, barreling gently into Jihoon.“Ah...cute,” Jihoon laughs, taking the cap off and poking Mingyu in the cheek, nothing but smile lines and two teeny, tiny dips at the edges of his mouth.





	if it feels like a home

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think you have to have read well i know i'm gonna be to understand this, but I'm sure it helps! It does also contain spoilers for that fic obviously. Here is the first of (hopefully!!!) many slice of life fics in this universe. I hope it's alright! As always, you can always find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ljhmyg), where I have been screaming about Jihoon holding a dog for 87 years, at this point, or [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/ljhmyg)
> 
> Title is from [James Blake's "Power On"](https://open.spotify.com/track/2qNUaGPyb4HhCutBS0Z0hF?si=D_XscBGBSMGDtsY8pPzHWw)

* * *

* * *

Mingyu heads up when Jihoon finally texts; he's already there when Mingyu reaches the top landing, leaning against a pillar, uneasy around the crowd. He's watching the stairs from their section like a hawk and spots Mingyu right away, eyes lighting up as he yanks his mask down under his chin, unrestrained grin fleeting evidence of usually self-contained excitement before he grimaces and opens his mouth wide. Jihoon's _Minggoo-yaaah_ from across the walkway is wordless and warm, his arms spread briefly, the fabric of the oversized tank underneath his open Lotte Giants jersey draping dangerously loose across his chest.

It’s a good way to go, as far as Mingyu is concerned: contemplating dramatically flinging himself to the ground in the walkway of this baseball stadium to avoid blurting out to anyone who meets his eyes that _actually, he’s **also** living in every home he draws for his boyfriend_, so he chirps and clutches a hand to his heart instead, not stopping, barreling gently into Jihoon. 

The bill of his cap catches Mingyu in the chest. “Ah...cute,” he laughs, taking the cap off and poking Mingyu in the cheek, nothing but smile lines and two teeny, tiny dips at the edges of his mouth. He knocks the bill of Mingyu’s own cap down sharply, the Lotte Giants insignia now somewhere in front of his eyes.

“Did you buy that when you got here?”

Mingyu blinks against the darkness. “Last week–it’s your favorite team." They're playing the Twins today and–he smiles at a shiny head of ash grey, Jihoon appearing on tiptoe, a vision with an undercut, hello, hi, how are you, his hands splayed out on Mingyu’s shoulders for balance. **Wow!** Mingyu's brain screams at him when Jihoon kisses him, so Mingyu scoops him up in a hug after instead of screaming back, arms wrapped around his middle.

Okay, so maybe he screams a little, mostly because if he keeps all the good Jihoon feelings in they tend to bubble over and make him do things like meet Jihoon at the airport or take an online English Language course so he can better understand the nuances between Jihoon's original lyrics and the translated final products. It's a lot sometimes.

With an amused sigh, Jihoon murmurs, “Stop it.”

“I didn’t even say anything,” Mingyu mumbles, crooked fingers knocking Jihoon under the chin. Then, in a flash, he tucks a surreptitious hand between Jihoon’s chest and top, brushing up against the piercing with the backs of his knuckles.

With a jerk, Jihoon lands hard against the pillar and claps a hand over his pec, a strangled laugh leaving him, teeth on his bottom lip. “I thought you were going to stop doing that outside.”

“No, I said I was going to stop doing it around our friends,” Mingyu smiles. Jihoon scoffs, grin tugging at his mouth by an unseen force. "Do you want me to stop doing it in public?"

Jihoon looks out towards the field, feigning confusion, still palming his chest. "What..._is_ this place? Is this…baseball?"

"Because I can, hyung. If you're not into it." 

He squints at his cap, scratching out an invisible stain instead of answering. "Is that–?"

In a stage whisper: “Hyung.” 

Jihoon glances up, hand poised midair. Mingyu waggles his eyebrows, jerks his head to the bathroom entrance. Jihoon plops his hat back on his head, smiling so wide Mingyu is _sure_ it’ll stick that way this time, it _has_ to. He curls both hands around Mingyu’s shoulder, chin resting on top, pushing them in an awkward waddle towards the stairs. 

“I like you so much it annoys me,” he says, and Mingyu’s heart skips a clumsy beat, tripping over itself in its haste to snatch up every word. “Let’s go watch the game.”

* * *

They get closer to their row, Jihoon slowing in confusion on the slab of the concrete step, actual seats already forgotten until Mingyu comes up behind him to nudge him into the correct one with a hand on his shoulder. “Genuinely shocked Soonyoung-ah isn’t here; he said he was going to try to infiltrate because I refuse to take him to games anymore because all he does is stare at everyone’s butts and laugh every time I say bunt.”

“Empty threat, I paid him off. Here,” he brushes past Jihoon to sit, pulls the seat down to his right for Jihoon. 

Jihoon throws himself into it and snorts. “What, do I have to hug him for a whole hour whenever I see him next?” 

Ah. Mingyu grins. “Hyung said he wants another Friend Date, whatever that is. Do you go on dates with Soonyoung-hyung?”

He slips an arm around the back of Mingyu’s chair. “Not if I can help it.”

The game isn’t starting for another twenty minutes–the teams are finishing warm ups–and they have to talk a bit louder to hear each other over the cheering sections and thousands of balloon sticks knocking together. It’s nice, like this, a bubble almost. Jihoon with his hair in his eyes (too busy for a cut) and sweet, crooked smile on display, his fingers drawing idle, delicate patterns on Mingyu’s shoulders. 

Mingyu shoots him a curious look, and Jihoon heaves a sigh and says, quick like the words are being shoved out of him: “We stay home and watch anime and he holds my hand. He gets one of them a year, not including his birthday, it’s not a big deal.”

“The world’s greatest philanthropist,” Mingyu clucks, patting his thigh. “You give so much.”

“I can’t believe you bartered my hand for a one-on-one date,” Jihoon tells him, betrayed. “You owe me chimaek. And balloon sticks. And your undying loyalty.” 

“Done and done,” Mingyu says, picking his butt up off the seat awkwardly to reach for his wallet. “I think Soonyoung-hyung might fight me for the last one, though.”

“He’ll _lose_,” Jihoon says ferociously, even though Soonyoung isn’t around to hear him, and Mingyu pauses mid-rise, filled to the fucking _brim_ with such a ludicrous amount of happiness it seems unfair to expect him to walk around like everything is normal. 

“I love you,” Mingyu says, low, because he wants to. Jihoon’s features smooth out in the span of a breath, open for the briefest of moments, unsure of where to step, before his cheeks begin to flush.

He sticks his tongue out. “Blech.”

“Over_whelmed_ with fondness,” Mingyu guesses, leaning in heavy to knock his forehead to Jihoon’s temple. Jihoon only laughs, shrugging him off to dig around for the program he jammed in his back pocket. He cants his head to the side, Mingyu catching the edge of a hidden smile, softer than before. 

He floats to the concessions.

* * *

To be honest, Mingyu doesn’t understand baseball. He supposes there’s not much to it, theoretically, and knows that’s not really the point of the sport here, that so much of the game is the love of the atmosphere, too, the feeling of community, but the concept of watching people move in tiny increments every five minutes has never particularly appealed to him.

Jihoon loves it, though; he hasn’t stopped smiling. Currently, he has a beer in one hand, his free arm still across the back of Mingyu’s chair. An empty fried chicken container sits at his feet and the balloon sticks Mingyu _also_ bought have been tucked between their seats in case they have to stand. 

In between cheering and explaining what, exactly, a strike zone is, he tells Mingyu how he has a friend in the minors coming up next season, how it used to be his dream too, how it seemed big and impossible but he wanted it anyway, wanted something just for himself, for the first time really, and Mingyu is _sure_ his face must give him away, and he can’t even help it, because Jihoon gets lost in these little stretches of honesty more and more lately and it’s–

Jihoon could tell him a million of his secrets–the quiet ones, the ones you never say out loud because you’re so sure someone will laugh, either at the earnestness contained in them or your embarrassment–and Mingyu would want to know more. He slumps in his seat, hands curling over Jihoon’s armrest, smiling closed-mouthed, trying to purse his lips together to keep it all in. 

Without pausing, Jihoon catches his eye and flicks him in the shoulder, speaking through an easy smile, “maybe we can go to another game”, except Mingyu knows this season is over, which means Jihoon means in the future, possibly. (Unless he doesn’t.) 

“Could you at least try not to look like that _all_ the time?” Jihoon asks, apropos of nothing.

“Not even if I wanted to, hyung.”

* * *

The Giants lose, which is fine, because Jihoon was apparently expecting them to. He’s only a little wobbly as they make their way out of the stadium, cheeks warm. When they finally reach fresh air, Jihoon takes one look at the crowd leaving and turns to look at Mingyu. He holds out his hand.

“C’mon, if you lead we’ll be here for ten years.”

“No, we won’t,” Mingyu grumbles, letting Jihoon take hold of his wrist anyway. He’s tugged along almost immediately at an impressive speed, Jihoon darting between people anytime he spots an opening.

“Yes, we will, you’re too nice.” And, contemptuous: “All that height and what do you have to show for it?”

“Dashing good looks and a cheerful disposition.” 

Jihoon shoots him a withering look completely at odds with the way he laughs after–resigned, like he has _given up_, it’s too good of a feeling to tamp down. Abrupt, he switches them around so he’s behind Mingyu and before Mingyu can _blink_, Jihoon clutches his shoulders and launches himself up to wrap his legs around Mingyu’s waist. Mingyu pitches forward a step, choking out a laugh, hands under his thighs. 

How does this always happen?

“Minggoo-yah, carry me home,” Jihoon instructs, a sleepy drunk, unabashedly affectionate in the way he tucks his face against Mingyu’s neck. “You’re so strong and handsome.”

“Ah, hyung,” Mingyu laughs, “I should start recording you and playing the videos back later. How come when you do this sober you still sometimes look like you want to die?”

“It’s the defense mechanisms, the defense mechanisms,” Jihoon mumbles, rolling out a hand. He squeezes Mingyu’s sides with his thighs, arms looping around tighter, wriggling higher. “Please walk faster or I’ll get off the ride.”

“I should roll you directly into a puddle,” Mingyu scoffs, hefting him up, marching purposefully down the block towards the car, careful not to bump Jihoon into any unsuspecting bystanders. Jihoon’s chin is on his head now, somehow. It’s an odd feeling. Mingyu’s eyes dart up towards his brows. “It rained yesterday didn’t it?”

“I swear this is my love language,” Jihoon tells him in a voice no higher than a murmur, a smile working its way through every word, and Mingyu laughs, sure he might burst, this undiluted joy at the center of him a lightning strike outward. 

He’s sure Jihoon must feel it too.

* * *

Jihoon’s new apartment is somewhere equidistant between Mingyu and Seungcheol and Soonyoung, found last minute in the middle of finally settling everything in the States, starting a new demanding job as a co-lead in-house producer with his friend and mentor, and moving out of his hyungs a week ago. Mingyu himself hasn’t seen the place in a few days because of his own work; he toes off his shoes and steps into the half-furnished apartment with an armful of takeout, maneuvering around a handful of unpacked boxes before setting the bags down on one.

“Didn’t Wonwoo-hyung come over yesterday to help you out?”

He was sure Jihoon mentioned it.

Jihoon tosses his keys and hat onto an as-of-yet unpacked box. He looks at Mingyu, and then at the corner of the room, gesturing towards the TV and a pathetically deflated inflatable mattress as he heads towards his bedroom. “We unpacked the video games."

Mingyu nods with a thoughtful frown. “Yeah, I don’t know why I was expecting anything else.”

The bedroom is in better shape, at least: there’s a dresser set up, the closet fairly neat. Jihoon’s work space is immaculate, two monitors with speakers wired between them and in strategic places on either side of the desk. His Casio is in the corner, and above the wall lies Mingyu’s drawing in its frame, surrounded by a few newer photos and a handful of tacky decorations taped in an artfully messy way. 

Jihoon sees where his gaze is at and rolls his eyes. “Hansol-ah and Seungkwan-ah did that. Said if they had to walk into this place when it was done and stare at blank white walls they’d never help me on a track again. I figured it was easier to let them take my photos than argue.”

“I’m guessing the vaporwave stuff is Hansol-ah?”

“Unfortunately.”

Mingyu points to the other end of the room. “You set up your desk and dresser but not your bed? Why is your mattress up against the wall still?” 

The frame is...out of the packaging, at the very least, and placed in some haphazard rectangle-ish shape. The mattress isn’t even unwrapped yet. They look out of place here, the only things incomplete. “The room felt too...I don’t know. Loud, with only the mattress on the floor, and I didn’t want to get it dirty,” he hears Jihoon say. And when he turns: “I did the important stuff first. And I kept going to hyungs or yours and forgetting, too.”

“Sleep isn’t important?”

Jihoon stares at Mingyu, then at his work space, then back at Mingyu. 

“I don’t know how to answer that correctly with the personality that I have.”

Mingyu squints. “I bet you waited until the day before you officially moved in so I would do it for you.”

“It’s the summer long con of the century, baby,” Jihoon mumbles in response, turning Mingyu around and shooing him away. “Out, out, we have food.” 

He flaps a distressed hand at the frame. “But you have to _sleep_ today!”

“The inflatable,” Jihoon shrugs. “My dad gave it to me, it has a tiny rip but it lasts most of the night–”

“You have–I’m going to _scream_–”

“Food! Mingyu-yah, _food_, and then I promise I will let you yell at me for ruining my back by accidentally sleeping on hardwood or whatever.”

“It’s just not _good_ for you,” Mingyu says in a plaintive cry, fake-weeping even though he’s real-anxious. He grabs the takeaway bags so they can settle on the floor with the food in front of them. They eat in companionable silence, and when Jihoon finishes first, he lets himself fall backward with a contented sigh, patting his stomach.

“Thank you for paying.” 

“It’s your housewarming present,” Mingyu jokes, glancing behind him before setting his chopsticks in a container and lying next to Jihoon. Jihoon rolls towards him with purpose, leg curling around his hip. 

"You're so cute," he sighs.

Mingyu tilts his neck awkwardly to smile into his hair. “Still tipsy?"

"You’re super cute either way."

He laughs, arms snaking around Jihoon, hands clasped together at his shoulder. “I like when you’re sweet.”

“I’m sweet all the time,” Jihoon grumbles against his neck. “Right now. Earlier. That one time, in the Ikea.” With a groan, he flings his arm out, uncurling onto his back to stare up at the ceiling and says, in this private, careful way: 

“I think I'm really happy.”

He looks at Mingyu, gaze flitting between his eyes and his mouth. He opens _his_–changes whatever track got him there and backs off–opens it wider–

"Are you?"

And he's held there for a moment in his unsurety, even now. Mingyu wants to say _how can you not tell_, but he knows that isn't how any of this works. When you spend a lifetime convincing yourself you don't deserve to have something, it might eternally seem like it’s going to be taken away any second when you do get it. 

But it was brave of him to ask, so Mingyu holds his hand anyway and says, “My lease is up in February.”

Jihoon’s smile crackles like lightning between them. 

“Why are you _always_ yelling?”

“Because I love you.”

For a long moment, Jihoon studies him. He gnaws, thoughtful, on his bottom lip. Mingyu can see his dimples, the gears turning in his head. He wonders how many songs Jihoon has written about him when he looks at Jihoon and feels like this: face not so much an open book as it is lovingly worn, read a dozen and one times under the covers at night, notes in the margins, spine cracked and dangling. Spilled open, words everywhere. He wonders if it’s too much sometimes–he and Soonyoung are a lot alike that way, constantly roaring to be loved–but Jihoon reaches out more, so maybe it isn’t.

“I love you, too,” he says, head turning at that last moment, too winded for the final stretch, his hand clenching between them, momentary and restless.

“That’s okay.” Mingyu curls in this time so his head is on Jihoon’s shoulder. “I’ll just have a drawer.” 

There’s a beat. Jihoon shifts. 

He sounds squeamish when he says, “Minggoo, you already do.”

A wrinkle of consternation shoves its way between Mingyu’s brows, and then he thinks about an incomplete bed but an immaculately set up dresser, of printed photos framed and tacked up on a wall, which he obviously had to _give_ to Seungkwan and Hansol, and he feels like there is a thousand-piece marching band rattling inside his chest, threatening to break out. 

His breath shakes on an exhale–he’s shivering, and doesn’t understand why he’s shivering out of nowhere–and then shakes it off and sighs, a high, sweet sound, reaches up and over with his knees planting themselves on either side of Jihoon’s thighs.

Cupping Jihoon’s cheeks together, he shouts, “Hyung, is it because you steal so many of my clothes already!”

Eyes shut tight, Jihoon laughs and shoves him away with a palm flat to his face–Mingyu says _grmph!_–before rolling onto his stomach and up to his feet. He vanishes in the next second and calls from the bedroom with a voice like a smile: “Leave me alone!”

Mingyu starfishes out on the floor, grunting when something tiny and chiming hits him in the chest. He lifts his head. Sits up. Lets it fall into lap, bounced between his open legs to the floor, and then looks at Jihoon who, defiant, face _beet-red_, says, “If you make a big deal about this–_I already have your key_–”

“Because you didn’t even live in the country–!”

It sounds to Mingyu, suddenly, oddly, like he has been yelling for 700 years. He sits up on his knees. 

“This isn’t a thing,” Jihoon tells him. 

“It’s _absolutely_ a thing.”

“It’s a little bit of a thing,” he admits, coming closer. “But please never say it out loud again or I’ll die immediately.”

“Hyung loves me _so much_ he gave me a key and a drawer,” Mingyu says. He rises off his calves when Jihoon reaches him, lets Jihoon cup him under his jaw, thumb and forefinger lightly pressing in, tilting it up. 

He smiles with this tongue between his teeth, the flush taking its time to disappear, even now barely crawling its way across his neck. “I gave you two.” 

“Where are you going with this?” Mingyu whispers. Jihoon's responding laugh is more the slow-formed movement of a mouth, a soft rumble to his shoulders, than it is sound, but it clings in the air between them anyway.

Mouth parted, Mingyu palms Jihoon's hips, impatient. 

Then Jihoon straightens, inhales deep, weakly cursing the heavens. “Oh, if only there were a frame I could put my brand new mattress on.”

Mingyu is going to _cry_; he pushes himself into a stand, making his way across. “Fine. But you have to tell me nice things while I make it. Where are the tools?”

“In the box–just because the idea of us living together scares me doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it,” Jihoon replies, and Mingyu stumbles into the bedroom and falls face first on Jihoon’s throw rug. 

"Good talk," he replies, weak, turning onto his back to recover. 

Jihoon looks like he is not trying all that hard to _not_ laugh, actually.

"Did your whole life flash before your eyes?"

"More or less," Mingyu calls, staring up at the ceiling.

"How was it?” He might be smiling, but Mingyu can’t see from this angle. “Bet the last year had lots of screentime."

"More or less," Mingyu says again, with a grin of his own, taking the hand Jihoon offers to help him up. 

In the next breath, he’s hugging Mingyu from behind. “Maybe in February,” he mutters with his face buried and, when Mingyu is positive his entire body will dissolve in front of him unless he turns _rightthissecond_, Jihoon adds with his arms clamped tight around Mingyu’s middle: “If you try to look me in the eye right now I’m going to scream all of the oxygen out of my body.”

Mingyu touches his forearm and tries to breathe out slow instead. 

“You think about February?”

A thump, Jihoon bumping his forehead to the center of Mingyu’s shoulderblades. 

“I think about lots of days.”

“Mm,” Mingyu tests the give, but Jihoon tenses again, so he relaxes. “More than you used to.” 

In a contemplative voice, Jihoon mumbles _yeah, maybe_ against his back. Careful, Mingyu says, “I would want a home with you,” and if it’s possible, Jihoon tenses up even more, coiled tight, a rubber band ready to snap. Mingyu almost turns anyway–and then Jihoon deflates like a balloon, all the air leaving him at once with one long, tired laugh. 

“Sorry,” he says. “It’s just a lot. Not,” he shoves his head in more, gesturing somewhere towards Mingyu’s heart, maybe. “That. Just–...”

“Wanting it?” Mingyu guesses.

Jihoon’s responding, “Yeah,” is so soft Mingyu almost doesn’t hear it.

Somewhere out there, maybe, there’s a different Jihoon–not a better one, or a softer one, but a different one–who builds homes in people like its nothing and everything all at once. This one has a harder time, and Mingyu gets it, at its base, somewhere deep in the decision-making part of his brain that tells him Doing This Could Hurt You. Being afraid of that hurt, and doing it anyway. Because–well. People _can_ smash all the lamps in your house. They can change the locks and shut the blinds, and people can pack their homes up right inside of you and leave you stranded with nowhere to go. 

But this Jihoon–this one is trying. So–maybe to _this_ Jihoon, a person isn’t a home. But the way he rewards Mingyu with one of those booming cackles, surprised out of him, head thrown back (Mingyu thinking what he always thinks when it happens which is: **I DID THAT!!! ME!!!**); the way his fingers curl and dig into Mingyu’s hips, jaw, wrists, equal parts sweet and heady; the way he _moved across the fucking world just to wake up nearer_?

It all has to add up to something, doesn’t it?

He clears his throat. 

“I can’t build the frame unless you let go.”

“Ten more seconds,” Jihoon says. 

Mingyu looks down at his feet and smiles.

* * *


End file.
